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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176965">Certainty</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary'>coaldustcanary</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Game of Thrones (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Soulmates, F/F, Soulmate-Identifying Marks</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-07 02:22:22</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,022</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27176965</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/coaldustcanary/pseuds/coaldustcanary</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Sansa had learned to doubt her own certainty about the meaning of her mark.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Yara Greyjoy/Sansa Stark</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>3</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>36</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Trick or Treat Exchange 2020</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Certainty</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/NRGburst/gifts">NRGburst</a>.</li>



    </ul></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When the gray mark had begun to appear on her skin years ago at Winterfell, Sansa had felt certain she knew what it meant. Her heart fluttering in her chest, caught between excitement and fear, she would pull the sleeve of her night shift up to see how the mark had grown and taken on distinct form in the night, until after weeks the tangle of bold lines had aligned themselves into a familiar shape - a kraken, not unlike the black creature sewn into some of the garments of her father’s ward.</p><p>Theon.</p><p>It made sense. It was the thing stories were made of, after all; the daughter of a noble house united with the son of her father’s former foe. The singers made many songs of such alliances. And Theon was a handsome boy, and clever and quick. He had faults, to be sure, but not so many more than other men, and fewer than many. Sansa took a few days to plan how she would show him. While his own mark to pair her own must be forming even now - what would it look like, she wondered? It would be a wolf, perhaps, but soulmarks were not always house sigils - Sansa saw no sign that he was baring his forearm in her presence so that she might confirm their match.</p><p>On the day she chose, Sansa dressed carefully, and delicately pulled the sleeve of her gown a few fingers’-width up her arm, baring the tangled, careful lines of the mark that only her soulmate’s match would see. She crossed Winterfell’s main bailey, avoiding the worst of the dust and filth, and watched Theon and her brothers practice their archery. It was a thing at which Theon naturally excelled, and if after his victory he turned to see Sansa applaud his performance, soulmark visible on her bared arm, it would make a good tale and a fine memory.</p><p>But as Theon drew back his bowstring, his sleeve pulled taut and revealed his wrist, unmarked. Sansa stifled a gasp, but the harsh whistle of it caught their attention, and Robb, Theon, and Bran all turned to look her way even as Theon’s arrow flew wide of the mark and he cursed.</p><p>“For gods’ sake, Sansa, what is it? Did a mouse run over your toes?” Theon snapped. Robb slugged Theon sharply in the arm.</p><p>“Leave off, Theon. If you can’t manage it without distraction, you’ll not pull down any game when it matters, anyway,” Robb drawled. Bran only peered at Sansa curiously, his sharp eyes following her as she turned on her heel and retreated, even as the older boys bickered and snapped, unaware of Sansa’s flight.</p><p>It wasn’t Theon.</p><p>In that case, it mattered little. Many, perhaps most people did not wed their soulmates, after all. It was nothing but a hopeful, romantic notion, but not to be.</p><hr/><p><br/>On Yara Greyjoy’s longship, the Black Wind, the Queen in the North felt certain she knew what awaited her on the Iron Islands. In the years since the War for the Dawn, since her brother had become King of Westeros, and since the death of the Dragon Queen, many things had changed. The people of the Iron Islands were still stiff-necked and proud creatures, but their ore and their fish and their oil were now precious traded commodities to the Kingdom of the North, who in turn provided timber and tubers and beef. Yara was a clever negotiator but a fair one, and Sansa was always pleased to make her annual visit to the Lady Paramount of the Iron Islands.</p><p>Standing in the prow of the ship, the spray of the water misting in her hair, Sansa smiled a little wistfully. That Theon was not here at his sister’s side was a tragedy. Though he had not proven to be her soulmate, he had proven his worth to her and to her family many times over. She missed him perhaps more keenly than even if he had been her mark’s mate. Still, she was careful on these visits to cover her mark. Even if only her soulmate could actually see the dark lines, there was too much risk that to find her match would end in chaos. The balance of power between the realms these past years was too fragile, for all her brother’s care as king. To be tied to one of the Greyjoys’ lesser cousins might trouble Yara’s rule, and that Sansa could not risk.</p><p>“I don’t envy your lady maids tonight’s work of putting your hair to rights, Your Majesty,” Yara drawled with a crooked smile, drawing up alongside her, her own tousled brown locks blowing about her cheekbones.</p><p>“I am sure I’ll manage. My mother taught me to care for my own hair, and I still do, you know,” Sansa replied calmly, reaching up to run a hand over one of her damp-fuzzed braids with a rueful smile, only to have Yara’s teasing face freeze in an expression of utter consternation. Sansa blinked, glancing up at her arm...to see that her wrist and her soulmark was bared to the other woman’s gaze. If she saw it, then… Her gaze shifted frantically to Yara’s own. With quick, trembling fingers, Yara was unlacing the leather bracer fit tightly over her forearm, tugging at it eventually with her teeth as the thongs pulled free and pulling up her shirtsleeve to bare it.</p><p>A wolf circled her wrist, pacing and proud, crowned with a circlet of weirwood leaves.</p><p>“I’d thought,” Yara began, her voice hoarse. “I’d thought, for a time, that your brother, Robb-- But never-- I wouldn’t have guessed it would be you. I should have. After you became queen, I should have.”</p><p>Tentative, careful, Sansa reached out to clasp Yara’s calloused hand in her own, something like a smile curling her lips.</p><p>“We both should have,” she agreed. "Long before now. But perhaps this is just the right time to know, for certain, that we've each met our match." Yara laughed, bowing her head over Sansa's hand with a glint in her eye. </p><p>"Oh, that much I knew long ago."</p>
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